Limit time, spending on political campaigns to get best candidates
What can we do about the power of money and interest groups in our politics? First, can't we limit what each candidate spends to get into office?
Then, perhaps we may get the best person rather than the one who spends the most money. It boggles the mind when I read and hear a politician has to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in some cases millions of dollars, to run for office.
Also, allow each person three months to campaign. Let the person be judged by his or her work, not by exaggerated speeches, often written by someone else.
The present system is out of control. The average voter has very little voice unless he or she has made a large contribution to the campaign or belongs to a special interest group with money and backing.
That's why the nonvoters are increasing in numbers during the primary and general elections.
Phyllis Weatherly
Phoenix
Sauerbrey tries to disguise herself with moderate mask
It is quite a comedy to observe Ellen R. Sauerbrey's attempt to disguise herself as a moderate under the direction of the paid professional Republican strategists, and the Republican Party of Maryland refusing to play along.
Guy Sabatino, Republican Club of Maryland president, stated that "you can't tone her down."
She is what she is ("Sauerbrey cuts duties of campaign manager in staff shakeup," July 28). Mr. Sabatino also suggests that Ms. Sauerbrey's whole staff must be replaced. Many of Ms. Sauerbery's staunch right-wingers are being quickly deflated and disillusioned by her election-time moderation.
It is all too clear to the average Maryland voter that Ms. Sauerbrey has been a right-wing extremist based on her past voting record. She has consistently voted against such issues as the environment, gun control and funding for education.
All of a sudden Ms. Sauerbrey has tried to tone down her message, hoping if she gets elected she can do another flip-flop and become the usual right-winger she was for 16 years.
She has tried to placate every constituency by promising little but rhetoric a distorted basis for facts or homework. She says she will cut taxes and raise spending. She states she will help the elderly and the cities hoping to siphon away the governor's support. She speaks out of both sides of her mouth.
Ms. Sauerbrey has been quoted as saying, "There is no better indication of what you are going to do in the future than what you have done in the past." She cannot hide from her past voting record. She has been on the opposite side of the moderate Maryland voter in the years she served in the House of Delegates.
Thomas E. Quirk
Hunt Valley
Freud helped to explain our unconscious behavior
How could who be so wrong? Perhaps Dr. Paul R. McHugh, in trying to write about Sigmund Freud ("How could Sigmund Freud have been so dead wrong? Aug. 23), has difficulty with complexity. (There's a link here to his telling a professional meeting, in categorical certainty, "old people are happy.")
His curiously disjointed piece leaves out most understanding.
Dr. Franklin Evans, in his Aug. 29 letter, emphasizes the importance of the essential idea of the dynamic unconscious as basic in Freud's work and of its demonstration in the life around us. It would even be reasonable to say that Freud sought to help people to be aware of their unconscious influences and to function with a better sense of reality.
It is of further interest that Dr. McHugh, a neurologist before becoming a psychiatrist, completely ignores the fact that neuroscientists, working in laboratory settings with highly technical approaches, have found evidence of unconscious factors operating in human behavior.
Mary O. Styrt Baltimore
Costs are not soaring for UMUC students
In discussing potential increases in tuition and fees at University System of Maryland institutions the story "Regents to discuss raising fees, more," (Aug. 28) contained an omission.
University of Maryland University College (UMUC), the only one of the 11 degree-granting institutions in the system that specializes in part-time educational opportunities for working adults, was not included in the article nor in the chart demonstrating proposed tuition and fees increases.
Had UMUC been included, your readers would know how that UMUC's 1999-2000 tuition will rise a mere 0.5 percent. In addition, UMUC students pay no mandatory fees, making the overall increase to the student less than 1 percent.
Many UMUC students work full-time while attending the university parttime, and most sacrifice a significant amount of their free time in order to fulfill their academic goals.
In turn, UMUC is committed to ensuring that our students not only have access to a university education, but tthat hey also can afford it.
Robert E. Myers
College Park
The writer is acting president at University of Maryland University College.
Identify reading problems before they get worse
A locally pervasive myth of dyslexic education is that "children with dyslexia require a reading curriculum that is multisensory" ("Reading the signs," Aug. 30).
In fact, shockingly little valid, reliable research has been published in support of this opinion. The reading program that has been repeatedly shown to most effectively advance general reading abilities in all students dyslexic or otherwise is SRA's Distar, which incorporates a model of instruction called Direct Instruction.
Distar has recently been used by select Baltimore City schools as the central pillar of their elementary, mainstream reading curricula and, as such, has been written about at length in previous Reading by 9 feature articles.
In and of itself, the multisensory approach to dyslexic education is not unlike whole language in that it's fun and works great for some kids but ultimately doesn't stand up to Distar under the harsh light of thorough longitudinal studies.
One of the many perceived problems of public education is that not until an otherwise "normal" child has fallen behind his or her ability level by a full two years can that child qualify for special education services.
Not until such time, in most school districts, will the child's language disabilities be addressed by qualified specialists -- special education teachers -- using research-backed reading programs.
Private schools, too, often and for other reasons seem unwilling or unable to address special needs in reading instruction in a timely manner.
The irony of this is that if so-called dyslexic students were, at the outset, provided solid instruction by first- and second-grade reading teachers using curricula proven effective in both prevention and amelioration of reading difficulties, such problems would not occur as often with would not require costly and intensive intervention. This is the bright idea that has recently begun to materialize in the discussions over teacher education in the state of Maryland -- teach it right the first time.
Concerned or curious parents and teachers should pick up a copy of Siegfried Engelmann's "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" to get a quick review of the literature and a look at the Distar program.
Lea Jones
Sparks
Let TV's Bart Simpson teach history lessons
I see the old guys who run this country are upset that our television-addicted youth, raised on sitcoms for six hours a day, know more about Bart Simpson than they know about Abraham Lincoln ("Pop goes the knowledge," Sept. 3).
The solution they propose is to spend $130 million for a museum?
If Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania could forget the pork barrel for a minute, he might consider spending the $130 million on seed money for an ongoing series of classy TV spots featuring pop icons from the Simpson character to movie star Leonardo DiCaprio to feed teen-agers the information, factoid by factoid.
If nothing else, how about a line of American history baseball cards?
Michael Kernan
Baltimore
Pub Date: 9/07/98